Is Argos acting legally?

Fosterdog

We still don't know how much it cost originally to be able to fairly look at what level of depreciation is acceptable, looking on Argos even the mattresses over £2000 only come with a 5 year warranty, so is that how long the manufacturers expect them to last? My parents mattress was just over £900 and is almost ten years old and still great, my mattress was only £250 five years ago and it needs replacing soon. We bought a very cheap £40 mattress for the spare bedroom and it has been awful from day one (as expected for the price) and has a topper added just to make it even possible for us to allow guests to sleep on it. You do get what you pay for.

Another thing overlooked is that OP bought the mattress with a bed, is the refund offered for the whole package? Assuming it was sold as a single item rather than two separate they may only return both parts and with the bed not being faulty, just the mattress that could reduce the proportionate refund further.

Personally I'd go along the lines of if the whole package was less than £500 then it was most likely a cheap budget mattress to start with so two years is acceptable wear if used every night rather than as a guest bed only used a dozen times.

OP you do need to clarify with them whether or not they are expecting the whole bed to be returned rather than just the mattress, if they will give you a 67% refund and take both away you have to budget to replace both, however if they will give 67% and allow you to keep the bed that is a decent percentage for you to use towards a replacement mattress to go on your existing bed.

ThumbRemote

daytona0 wrote: »

I suspect the main possibility is that within year 1 an item goes from "new" to "used". Each subsequent year it goes from "used" to "more used".

Fosterdog wrote: »

We still don't know how much it cost originally to be able to fairly look at what level of depreciation is acceptable

To repeat, depreciation is not relevant here.

The law says "any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use". Not that the consumer is given the current value of the item. (Unless you think the OP could claim the value of the mattress has actually increased because someone famous has been sleeping there!)

The OP has had two years use of a mattress. If that mattress should be expected to last 10 years, the deduction should be 20%, if some other length of time then calculated accordingly. No 'curved lines' or other calculations that are fundamentally unfair to the customer.

agrinnall

ThumbRemote wrote: »

The OP has had two years use of a mattress. If that mattress should be expected to last 10 years, the deduction should be 20%, if some other length of time then calculated accordingly. No 'curved lines' or other calculations that are fundamentally unfair to the customer.

Do you have a link to legislation that backs that up? Because I have my doubts that it's as simple as that?

agrinnall

foxtrotoscar wrote: »

So probably £15 has now become £25 minimum...what's the maximum? I'm concerned that you are giving out incorrect information as it may mislead.

So rather than thank someone who has taken the time to provide information that you could have found yourself, all you can do is slag them off? Nice behaviour. I almost didn't do this, but it may help other people, the full list of court fees can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/court-fees

steampowered

foxtrotoscar wrote: »

So probably £15 has now become £25 minimum...what's the maximum? I'm concerned that you are giving out incorrect information as it may mislead.

I gave you a link to the official table which lists the fees involved with starting a court claim. If you want to know what the fees are just click on the link.

The size of the fee depends on the size of the amount you are claiming. The maximum fee is £10,000 which apply when you are issuing a claim for £200,000 or more. I doubt the Op's mattress is worth £200,000.

I don't think there is any potential for misleading people. When you complete the form to issue a claim on the moneyclaimonline website, you are told what the fee is and you have to enter your credit card details to pay it.

daytona0

w

ThumbRemote wrote: »

To repeat, depreciation is not relevant here.

Umm, it is? Depreciation is the decrease in value of assets. If you are only getting 67% (or whatever!) after 2 years' use then the value of said assets have decreased

The law says "any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use". Not that the consumer is given the current value of the item. (Unless you think the OP could claim the value of the mattress has actually increased because someone famous has been sleeping there!)

I don't understand your point here. If a reduction is made then it will be a representation of how much the value has depreciated. What else would it represent if not that?

Your outlandish example of how the value could increase is something which is not actually as outlandish as you think. But that obviously wouldn't apply with a retailer directly.

The OP has had two years use of a mattress. If that mattress should be expected to last 10 years, the deduction should be 20%, if some other length of time then calculated accordingly. No 'curved lines' or other calculations that are fundamentally unfair to the customer.

Those 'curved lines' are actually MUCH FAIRER to the customer! It is just that people do not fully understand them People like simple maths; take off a linear x% each year and make it reflect the length of time it is expected to last.

The biggest two problems of that approach are:

- After 10 years the mattress is effectively valueless! No, a 15 year old mattress can still have some value and it is much fairer for a retailer to actually factor that in (which is what a 'curved line' does!).

- Say an item is £100. Year one reduction is £10 which is 10% of £100. But year two reduction is £10 from the remaining £90 which is actually 11.11%!!! So as time goes on you get penalised more! It is subtly not as fair as you think!

So the 'curved line' is more fairer It takes a fixed percentage, say 15%, and takes it off each year. Ie year 1 it is 15% of 100 which is 85. Then year 2 it is 15% of 85 (and NOT 30% of 100).

naedanger

daytona0 wrote: »

w

Umm, it is? Depreciation is the decrease in value of assets. If you are only getting 67% (or whatever!) after 2 years' use then the value of said assets have decreased

I agree with your definition of depreciation, but it is not relevant because the Consumer Rights Act makes no reference to it, or to the market value of the item. (And it would have been easy to word the Act that way if that had been the intention.)

What the CRA says is:

If the consumer exercises the final right to reject, any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use, to take account of the use the consumer has had of the goods in the period since they were delivered, but this is subject to subsections (9) and (10).

[Bold is my emphasis.]

(From paragraph 24 (8) of http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/pdfs/ukpga_20150015_en.pdf)

If a reduction is made then it will be a representation of how much the value has depreciated.

No.

What else would it represent if not that?

The reduction is to be for the amount of use that the consumer has had from the item and not for how much the item has depreciated. Usage and depreciation are, as has been said previously, not the same thing. The Act is clear that a reduction for usage is permitted. There is no provision that would instead permit a reduction for depreciation.

Personally I think that a reduction for usage is fairer to the consumer but which is fairer is irrelevant when discussing what is permissible.

ThumbRemote

I think naedanger has said everything that I would in response, save to add that your description of 'fairer' is fundamentally flawed. Firstly, the 6 year limit for claiming means that any supposed 'benefit' somewhere down the line is irrelevant as you can't claim then anyway. Secondly, there's no real world basis for using percentages of the residual value, rather then the original cost, in your year on year calculation.

takman

naedanger wrote: »

I agree with your definition of depreciation, but it is not relevant because the Consumer Rights Act makes no reference to it, or to the market value of the item. (And it would have been easy to word the Act that way if that had been the intention.)

What the CRA says is:

If the consumer exercises the final right to reject, any refund to the consumer may be reduced by a deduction for use, to take account of the use the consumer has had of the goods in the period since they were delivered, but this is subject to subsections (9) and (10).

[Bold is my emphasis.]

(From paragraph 24 (8) of http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/pdfs/ukpga_20150015_en.pdf)


No.


The reduction is to be for the amount of use that the consumer has had from the item and not for how much the item has depreciated. Usage and depreciation are, as has been said previously, not the same thing. The Act is clear that a reduction for usage is permitted. There is no provision that would instead permit a reduction for depreciation.

Personally I think that a reduction for usage is fairer to the consumer but which is fairer is irrelevant when discussing what is permissible.

That is still a very general statement and if your not going to be looking at depreciation or market value then how can you come up with a value for the use the customer has had from a bed?.
You could argue that a bed in a spare room for two years is hardly used so should be worth 98% of its purchase price whereas a bed used everynight by two very heavy people has had alot of use so is now only worth 20% of its original price.

So really it is very difficult to give an accurate figure or the amount of "use" a bed has had.

wesleyad

It's certainly tricky but I can see why daytona is saying depreciation is separate from use.

An extreme example... after 1 night depreciation on the mattress is massive (very few people will buy a second hand mattress), I would hazard a guess at 25% reduction from new market value at least.

However in terms of "how much value has the customer had from the bed" clearly they have not had 25% (unless the mattress is only going to last 4 days)

In this situation, if life is meant to be 10 years (I have no idea, depends on quality) and OP has has 2 years then they really should be looking at 80% back, regardless of current market value of mattress.